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Sakorafa became a Palestinian citizen in 2004 and applied at the last minute for a berth on the Palestinian Olympic team at the age of 47. Photo via twitter.com/SofiaSakorafa/status/489878904875024384

Sofia Sakorafa, Greek Eurodeputy representing SYRIZA, has criticized the recent European Parliament resolution on Israel-Palestine after the Gaza war and the role of the EU and said that this motion represents a “distortion of reality” on the grounds that Israel is the “conqueror” and Palestinians “the resisting”, that “there’s military cleansing by an occupation army” and that “there’s an apartheid imposed” in Gaza. Sofia Sakorafa made also a comparison between the crimes of the Nazis and “the atrocities of Israel” and argued that “the redemption of the Germans came when they looked right in the eye this black page of their history”, whereas there is need not to “allow history to cite the atrocities of Israel, with words and terms that incubate their repetition.”

Syriza fully identifies itself with the Palestinian cause, and their party platform explicitly calls for an end to Greece’s defense cooperation with the «aggressive» Israel, even though on Friday his foreign affairs advisor tried to take a softer stance. Tsipras’ party colleagues and his own inner circle have repeatedly attacked Israel and the «Zionists», claiming that they are not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist. […] Sofia Sakorafa, a confidante who has rubbed shoulders with Hamas, and a celebrated former Olympic athlete, requested and received Palestinian citizenship a few years ago, in a bid to represent Palestine in the Olympic Games, when she was well into her 40s. (Sabby Mionis: Greece’s Jewish voters are faced with an impossible choice, daily «Haaretz», Jun. 10, 2012)]